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Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu walks to address his supporters at his party headquarters during Israel's general election in Jerusalem.
Netanyahu clinches it
With around 99% of the vote counted, Israel’s former longtime leader Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu is in prime position to reclaim the prime ministership, with his Likud Party having secured 32 parliamentary seats out of 120, the most of any party. Bibi is now on track to form a coalition of 64 seats made up of extremist ultra-nationalist, anti-Arab, and anti-LGBTQ parties, as well as ultra-Orthodox groups. Many post-mortems will be written in the weeks ahead, but one of the biggest stories is the failure of Meretz, a flagship left-wing party, to reach the 3.25% threshold needed to even make it into the Knesset, marking the first time that Meretz won’t sit in parliament since its founding in 1992. Israel’s left-wing establishment is pointing the finger at Labor Party leader Merav Michaeli, who in the run-up to Israel’s fifth election in under four years, refused to merge with Meretz to boost the left’s electoral prospects, and the anti-Bibi bloc more broadly. Netanyahu will now do his usual shtick to try to cobble together a coalition. Though he has the numbers on paper, this won’t be a cakewalk: Many of Bibi’s “natural partners” will make their support contingent on certain demands, like portfolio leadership positions and cash for their communities. Bibi will have to make everyone happy to get over the finish line, and it won’t be easy.
A sticker and a banner of election campaign, depicting former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other politicians, are seen in Tel Aviv.
Israel’s fifth election in under four years: Will anything change?
We’ve seen this movie before: An ill-suited coalition government collapses, electioneering kicks off, and Israelis drag their feet to the polls.
On Tuesday, Israelis vote to elect a new government for the fifth time since April 2019. Former longtime Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu is looking to make a comeback nearly 18 months after he was relegated to opposition status. Accustomed to the trappings of PM life, Bibi has made no secret of the fact that he despises the indignity of playing second fiddle and desperately wants his old gig back.
As Israel votes yet again, what’s changed, what’s stayed the same, and what are the likely outcome(s) of round five?
First, how’d we get here? It was a very big deal in June 2021 when a “change government” was sworn in, ending Bibi’s 12-year reign. The man responsible for cobbling together the politically diverse coalition was Yair Lapid, a former journalist whose Yesh Atid Party (There is a Future) entered the political fray in 2013.
The bloc formed by Lapid, who is currently serving as caretaker PM, included a ragtag grouping of eight political parties (notably including an Arab Islamist party) that was united by nothing more than animus toward Bibi and ultimately collapsed this past summer.
What’s still the same? Bibi’s edge.
Facing criminal proceedings for alleged breach of trust and corruption, Bibi, who at 73 remains an indefatigable campaigner, has continued to agitate from the opposition rather than step aside and avoid dragging the country through an ugly political slugfest.
Despite his legal woes – or perhaps because of them – Bibi’s right-wing Likud Party remains Israel’s biggest. Again, Likud is slated to win the most of any party, with polls projecting it’ll reap around 30-31 out of 120 seats. Lapid is polling second with around 24-27 seats. This means Bibi will likely get the first shot at trying to convince other parties to join his coalition – a painstaking task in an environment where loyalty is a scarce commodity.
What’s changed? A united extreme right.
This time, Netanyahu successfully managed to broker the Religious Zionism alliance, which saw three far-right parties run on a single ticket so as not to split the right-wing vote. For Bibi, the bloc is a natural coalition partner that can help him get to 61 seats.
And that strategy has paid off, with Religious Zionism – an extremist bunch espousing anti-LGBTQ and anti-Arab views – expected to win around 14 seats, which would make it the third largest group in parliament. That’s no small feat considering that 40 political parties are vying for votes.
The success of this far-right grouping is in part due to the star power of a man you’ve likely never heard of: Itamar Ben-Gvir, 46, is an admirer of Meir Kahane, a radical anti-Arab ideologue who was banned from Israeli politics before being assassinated in 1990.
A religious Jew, Ben-Gvir has managed to attract secular voters with right-wing proclivities, as well as more moderate right-wing voters, by advocating a relaxation of military rules of engagement linked to the use of live fire and calling for immunity for frontline soldiers. In a country with mandatory conscription laws and a majority right-leaning electorate, this pro-military stance has proven fruitful for Ben-Gvir, who was notably banned from military service as a youth because of his extremist views.
The dissipating Israeli Arab vote. PM Lapid managed to form a diverse change government in June 2021 in large part because of the Arab Israeli vote, which brought the Islamist Ra’am Party into government for the first time.
But many Arab-Israeli voters remain frustrated by soaring crime and poverty rates in their hometowns – 70% of violent deaths in Israel this year have been in Arab communities – in addition to the ongoing occupation and broader stalemate of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Indeed, many feel that representation failed them and are vowing to sit this vote out.
What might another Bibi-led government look like? Netanyahu, backed by Religious Zionism, has vowed to limit the independence of the judiciary so that the High Court cannot overrule government decision-making (the court currently has the power to rule whether government law violates one of the state’s 13 constitutional laws). Ben-Gvir also says he wants to pass a law banning corruption probes of serving PMs, and that the law should be implemented retroactively, essentially letting Bibi off (though others say they wouldn’t support such a move).
Internationally, Bibi has sworn to rip up the newly signed maritime deal with Lebanon, though many have dismissed this as pre-election grandstanding. On Iran and Russia policy, meanwhile, there’s likely to be little daylight between Netanyahu and the current Lapid government.
The other plausible option is …. stalemate. If Netanyahu can’t secure a 61-seat majority, then Israel will hold a sixth election in the spring. Meanwhile, partisanship and ugly social cleavages will continue to deepen, and many social and economic problems will remain largely ignored.
A woman looks out of a window displaying a campaign banner of Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Ramla, Israel.
What We’re Watching: Elections loom in Israel & Northern Ireland, Elon Musk rules Twitterverse
Round 5 in Israel: Can Bibi make a comeback?
Israelis are doing the voting thing all over again on Nov. 1 in the country’s fifth general election since 2019. To recap, the current government crumbled in June, a year after PM Yair Lapid successfully brought together an ideologically diverse coalition to oust former longtime leader Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu. Still, current polls suggest that Israel’s melting pot – which includes Jews (secular to ultra-Orthodox), Muslims, Christians, and Druze – remains as divided as ever. Importantly, Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud Party is slated to win the most seats (as it did in the previous four elections) but (for now) is just shy of mustering enough support to cross the 61-seat threshold needed to form a government. One big change in this cycle is the momentum of three far-right parties that Bibi has courted to serve in his government. Together, the three could win up to 14 seats, suggesting that their extremist anti-Arab, anti-LGBTQ brand could become a more potent force within Israeli politics. Meanwhile, Lapid on Thursday signed a historic maritime deal with Lebanon, but Bibi says he might ditch it if he takes over, though many say this is just pre-election posturing.
Northern Ireland's voting merry-go-round
The country’s set for a snap election in December after political parties failed to elect a speaker and start forming a government in Northern Ireland before a Friday deadline. Since early May, the Democratic Unionist Party has been holding up the power-sharing agreement with Sinn Féin over the status of the Irish frontier. The UK's post-Brexit trade deal with the EU scrapped a physical border between Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK, and the Republic of Ireland, an EU member state. That means Northern Ireland has to comply with some EU regulations for cross-border trade, which for the DUP undermines its position within the UK. Since the unionists are chummy with the UK's ruling Conservative Party, unionists want London to step in. But newly minted PM Rishi Sunak has enough on his plate trying to rescue the British economy and hardly wants to pick a fight with Brussels. What’s next? The Northern Irish will go to the polls again, but regardless of how many seats the DUP and Sinn Féin win, these bitter enemies are required to share power under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. Still, the longer the impasse continues, the louder the calls for post-Brexit Northern Ireland to ditch the UK will get.
Elon Musk takes over Twitter
Feathers are already flying. Elon Musk finalized a $44 billion deal to take control of Twitter on Thursday, ending months of speculation, flip-flops, and legal battles. Within hours, four top execs — the CEO, CFO, head of legal policy, trust, and safety, as well as the general counsel — were shown the door. A vocal critic of Twitter’s content moderation, the South African-born tech giant has said he wants the platform to be a “de facto town hall” where free speech reigns. He’s called the permanent ban of Donald Trump’s account — the former president was barred after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot — a “morally bad decision.” While it remains unclear whether Trump would rejoin, having recently launched his own Twitter-style platform, Truth Social, the Twitterverse has erupted with predictions about when America’s 45th commander-in-chief might once again spread his little blue wings. We suspect that Russian President Vladimir Putin will also be pleased. Expect fireworks in the wake of Sunday’s Brazilian election and the Nov. 8 US midterms.
Déjà vu in Israel: Another government crumbles
Political tumult is again the order of the day in Israel, where the fifth election cycle in three years is about to kick off. Crippled by dysfunction and tribalism, Israel has joined the ranks of countries like Italy and Greece, where general elections have been known to occur with infuriating frequency.
What sparked the latest government collapse, and how might Israel overcome this period of chronic stalemate?
Background. It was a very big deal last June when a new Israeli government was sworn in that was not headed by someone called Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, who had held the top job for 12 years. The man responsible for cobbling together the politically diverse coalition was Yair Lapid, a 58-year-old former journalist who entered the political fray in 2013 and heads the centrist Yesh Atid (There Is a Future) Party.
By all accounts, the coalition government – headed for the past 12 months by rightwing Prime Minister Naftali Bennett – was a remarkable success in that … it existed. The bloc included a ragtag grouping of eight political parties – notably including an Arab Islamist party – united by nothing more than animus towards Bibi.
That coalition, however, began to crumble in recent months after a couple of right-wing lawmakers defected, robbing the government of its majority. Also in recent weeks, left-wing and Arab coalition members refused to back key legislation, making it clear that the minority government’s days were numbered. According to the coalition agreement inked last summer, Lapid, currently serving as foreign minister, will take over as interim PM until the next coalition is formed after the October polls.
The Bibi of it all. Bibi has been dreaming of this day since he was relegated to opposition status last year, forced to give up the trappings of PM life. While his right-wing Likud Party and allies remain the biggest parliamentary bloc, early polls show that he still wouldn’t have the 61-seat majority needed to win back the top job if elections were held today.
A longtime politician, Bibi has in recent years burned bridges with several right-leaning parties and former Likud members who would appear to be his natural political allies. Still, the forever-politician will do everything in his power to change that over the next 12 weeks.
The Biden of it all. This latest turmoil comes just weeks before US President Joe Biden is set to visit Israel, the Palestinian territories, and Saudi Arabia. While this throws a spanner in the works for the White House – which has been coordinating a very sensitive trip to the region with the Bennett-led government – for Lapid, the timing of the handover is perfect.
“Israelis are suckers for positive, warm attention, and visits from US presidents – no matter who the president is – are a huge deal,” says Neri Zilber, a Tel-Aviv based journalist and policy advisor at the Israel Policy Forum.
Biden’s upcoming visit “will be a major moment for Lapid to burnish his reputation, image, and standing as a real prime minister and a global statesman, especially among the Israeli public,” he adds. Indeed, many Israelis don’t see the former TV personality as having the grit or gravitas for the job.
Breaking the stalemate. The election outcome will in large part be decided by the ability of the current anti-Netanyahu bloc to again awkwardly hold hands and join forces. Prospects for such an alliance, however, are further complicated by the fact that several of these parties could fall short of the electoral threshold needed to sit in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.
But even if the same or a similar anti-Bibi bloc manages to ink a deal, it would only be a bandaid.
Part of the problem, says Anshel Pfeffer, The Economist's Israel correspondent and a senior writer for Haaretz, is structural. “The system has a bit of inherent political instability in it,” he says, including the very low threshold (3.25%) for small parties to make it into parliament.
And then, of course, there’s Bibi, the Israeli right’s juggernaut, who has in recent years waged war on state institutions and exploited ideological differences within the Knesset – and society – partly to distract from his own legal woes.
“If Bibi were out of the equation, would the Israeli political system recalibrate itself?” Pfeffer asks himself. “I think there’s a chance that it would. But it is far from a given.”
“There are other issues that aren’t being talked about, like state vs. religion, inclusion of Arab citizens within the government, executive vs. judicial powers” that would surely persist in a post-Bibi era, Pfeffer adds. “There’s no question that Netanyahu is fueling these things. But it doesn't necessarily mean that once he’s gone that these issues will be less toxic.”
And there’s another crucial factor that could upend the cycle of stalemate that many analysts are focused on: the Arab-Israeli vote, which has long been ignored by the Israeli political establishment. But that has changed since the Bennett-Lapid coalition included Raam, an Arab-Israeli party, for the first time in history.
“The fact that the Israeli Arabs are now in play, at least they have been over the past year … is a huge structural game changer in Israeli politics,” says Zilber, noting that for decades this 20% of the citizenry “were considered out of bounds.”
Indeed, the structural advantage the Israeli right has enjoyed for decades is beginning to shift.
Voting in Australia's federal election.
What We’re Watching: Aussies vote, Turkey threatens Nordic states, elections loom in Israel
What will voters decide Down Under?
Aussie voters head to the polls on Saturday to decide whether to keep Prime Minister Scott Morrison (ScoMo) of the right-leaning Liberal-National Coalition in power, or to pass the baton to the Labor Party’s Anthony Albanese. Speak to any Aussie, and they’ll tell you that neither bespeckled, middle-aged candidate inspires much excitement. Still, someone has to win! After nearly two years under some of the tightest COVID lockdown restrictions in the world, Aussies appear ready for change: Albanese, a left-leaning centrist, is leading in national polls by 2%. That’s encouraging for ScoMo, who just two weeks ago was trailing by 8 percentage points. The election cycle has been dominated by the cost-of-living crisis currently plaguing many advanced economies. Though unemployment in Australia has hit record lows, inflation is outpacing wage growth. Albanese, a long-time politician with little cabinet experience, has made a series of gaffes recently about the economy that likely contributed to the narrowing margin. According to ABC, some 5-8% of Aussie voters are still undecided. That could be the difference between whether Labor comes out on top after nearly a decade in opposition government. As Signal’s resident Aussie (Gabrielle), I am off to vote!
Turkey plays hardball with Nordic NATO bids
Finland and Sweden thought joining NATO would be a cakewalk, but they’ve run into some serious Turkish veto power. Ankara wants the Swedes to extradite 33 members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party — considered a terrorist group by the EU — and to end their arms embargo against Turkey over its military intervention in northern Syria. Turkey has less of a beef with Finland, but just in case, the Finns clarified that they won't host NATO bases or nukes (Sweden's ruling party concurs). But perhaps what the Turks really want is something the Nordics can't offer: for the US Congress to lift its ban on selling Turkey F-35 fighter jets — payback for Ankara purchasing Russian S-400 missiles against Washington's wishes. It turns out the Biden administration wanted to offer F-16s before Turkey upended NATO’s expansion plans, so let’s see how this all plays out. Turkey’s tough-talking President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan knows how to keep allies on edge, and he’s doing so when he can’t really afford to pick fights: his economy is in shambles, so he needs friends to invest in Turkey.
Correction: This brief originally referred mistakenly to a ban F-16s, not F-35s.
New elections loom in Israel … again
Israel’s fragile coalition government experienced a big blow on Thursday after Rinawie Zoabi, an Arab lawmaker from the far-left Meretz Party, quit the coalition. Zoabi criticized the government, led by PM Naftali Bennett, for pandering to the far-right flank of the bloc. She also said that recent violence around the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem and the killing of a prominent Palestinian journalist in the West Bank forced her to make the “moral decision.” This comes just weeks after another coalition legislator bolted, and Bennett now has the unenviable task of leading a minority government (there are 59 coalition members in the 120-seat chamber), which will make it very hard to pass legislation. Meanwhile, former PM Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, who now heads the opposition, is pushing hard for a no-confidence vote in the Knesset next Wednesday that would force another election, the country’s fifth in two and a half years. It is unclear, however, whether he has the votes. Bibi has to tread carefully: according to Knesset rules, if the motion fails, he has to wait six months before he can try again. Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, the architect behind the unwieldy coalition, now has less than a week to try and stave off more defections that could sound the death knell for the Bennett government.
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What We're Watching: Israel's strange bedfellows, Mali's isolation, Open Skies closed
Israel's new, weird government: Israel's political class never misses an opportunity for dramatic effect. And that's exactly what happened Wednesday when Yair Lapid of the centrist Yesh Atid party informed Israel's president that he had successfully cobbled together a coalition government just minutes before a procedural deadline at midnight. It's an historic outcome, ending the political reign of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after 15 years in power. The new coalition government will be rotational: Naftali Bennett, head of the rightwing Yamina party, will serve as PM until 2023, at which point he will switch roles with Lapid, who will serve as foreign minister until then. The government will be one of the most ideologically and religiously-diverse in Israel's history, including Jewish nationalist parties, right wing politicians who defected from Bibi's camp, left-wing parties, as well as Raam, an Islamist Arab party. Plenty of challenges await the new government, and Bibi is surely going to be a thorn in its side as head of the opposition in the Knesset. But after endless election cycles, many Israelis are rejoicing that they finally have a (fractious) new government.
African groups isolate Mali: The African Union (AU) on Wednesday suspended Mali from membership following a coup last week, the second in the West African country in just nine months. The AU, an umbrella group of 55 African nations representing the continent, threatened to impose sanctions if Mali does not move to reinstall the previous joint civilian military government. This comes a week after the 15-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) also suspended Mali and threatened to impose sanctions (ECOWAS, which established a free trade area, has the mandate to impose hard-hitting regional trade restrictions.) Last August, Mali's democratically elected government was toppled in a coup led by Col. Assimi Goita, who emerged from that dustup as interim vice president. Now, he has detained the transitional president, prime minister and defense minister for not consulting him before forming a new government and seized power himself. Economic sanctions would be devastating for Mali, a poor, landlocked country that has been battling an Islamic insurgency in the north that's displaced half a million people in recent years. Nine months ago, the junta caved and agreed to hold elections in 2022 in exchange for the lifting of crippling economic sanctions. Will Goita buckle this time?
Attention passengers, Open Skies is now closed: The Russian upper house has voted to ditch the decades-old Open Skies Treaty, a major post-Cold War arms control pact that permits the US, Russia, and 32 other (mostly European) countries to conduct short-notice, unarmed surveillance flights over each other's territory. The Trump administration withdrew the US from the agreement last year, over concerns that Russia was blocking US and NATO-member flights. While then-candidate Joe Biden criticized that move as "short-sighted," he changed his mind once in office, deciding last week not to re-enter the pact for the very same reasons. Russia has long complained that the US, for its part, blocks flights over Alaska, and most NATO members are keen to preserve the treaty, which is viewed as an important confidence-building measure. But Russian President Putin is almost certain to sign the withdrawal order, likely ahead of his upcoming summit with President Biden on June 16 in Geneva.
Netanyahu on the verge of losing power in Israel; US spying on EU?
Ian Bremmer shares his perspective on global politics this week:
Is Netanyahu's time as Israel's prime minister about to end?
It does look that way. Though of course, like with everything in Israel politics it's right down to the wire. Can they put this unity government, where the only thing they're unified on is everyone wants to get rid of Netanyahu, together by midnight Israeli local time. If they can it's the end of Netanyahu's term, 12 years tenure in office. Though the government's not going to last for long. They agree on absolutely nothing else. There's no policy that'll happen, maybe they get a budget together. That's about it. But my God, yes, indeed. It does look like Netanyahu's probably going to be out.
What's the deal with allegations of US spying on European allies?
Well, we've heard a fair amount of this coming out of the Snowden disclosures years ago. Now, further information about the United States government, the NSA in particular, working with the Danish government, a NATO ally, to engage in spying on other European countries, European officials, including Germany. Why the Danish government would agree with this, especially when they refuse to sell Greenland to us? I don't know. But it certainly is causing a lot of mistrust from key Europeans to the United States. When the US is saying, "We want to work with the Europeans on technology because the Chinese are to be mistrusted," the Europeans are mostly saying, "We'd rather hedge and go our own way. We don't know that we can trust anybody else." This does make it a little harder for the Biden administration.
What is next for Mali after a second coup within a year?
Well, they've been suspended from the African Union. That also happened after the first coup in the year but then when the civilian government came in, they reversed the suspension. This time around it might be tougher. It looks harder for civilian government to come back. When you are suspended from the African Union, you're really handling governance really badly. And the reason is Mali is an economically unimportant country, but strategically it does matter because of the fight against Islamist militants, some of which, many of which, are in the north of Mali, in the desert. The ability of other governments, both in the region as well as the French government, to work effectively with Mali if they have a military government that's completely unrepresentative and repressive, is going to be very low. And that means that you're likely to get more space for terrorist engagement opportunities for them to grow in the region as a consequence. Something we don't want to see.
Israel's historic (and fractious) post-Bibi government
After four elections in two years, Israel is finally on the brink of forming a new government. But for the first time in 12 years it won't be headed by someone named Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu.
The new power-sharing coalition is likely to be one of the most ideologically-diverse in the country's history. How, after years of dysfunction and deadlock, did we get here, and how might this new government shape Israeli politics and policymaking?
Background. For weeks, Yair Lapid of the centrist Yesh Atid party (There is a Future) has been trying to cobble together enough seats to form a coalition government that would end Prime Minister Netanyahu's long running grip on power.
That process has seen the emergence of a new kingmaker: Naftali Bennett of the rightwing Yamina party (New Right) whose seven Knesset seats Lapid needed in order to reach the 61 seat threshold required to form a government. In order to secure Netanyahu's defeat, Lapid agreed to let Bennett serve as prime minister, while he will head the foreign ministry. Come 2023, they will switch roles, according to the terms of the agreement.
The fractious coalition will now be a ragtag of eight political parties that span the ideological spectrum: it will likely include Raam, an Arab Islamist party focused on boosting funding to Arab-Israeli communities, as well as right and left wing factions. The only thing that truly unites these groups, though, is a desire to sideline Benjamin Netanyahu. Interestingly, some of these politicians, including Bennett, are former Bibi protégés who learnt the ropes from the politically-seasoned incumbent himself.
But so much for what they are all against — what are they for? Once in power, the prospective coalition will face a host of issues that could threaten its survival.
Reforming the judiciary. Netanyahu has long been accused of trying to erode trust in the judicial branch as part of an ongoing effort to scuttle the corruption case he's currently facing. The fact that currently the Attorney General, handpicked by the PM, both advises the government while also overseeing investigations (including the one into Netanyahu himself) has created concerns about a conflict of interest. Gideon Sa'ar, a Likud defector who is likely to head the incoming justice ministry, has been pushing hard for a law that would address this by splitting the Attorney General role in two. However, left-wing parties in the prospective government have reportedly voiced opposition to this reform, saying that politicians should leave the independent judiciary alone. Sa'ar will have to compromise.
Immigration. Tens of thousands of African migrants, mostly from Eritrea and Sudan, have entered Israel over the past decade, making immigration a hot button issue. Yamina's Ayelet Sheked, an anti-immigration hawk and close ally of Bennett, is likely to head the ministry of interior, giving her the immigration portfolio. Shaked, for her part, has previously tried to push the "law against infiltration" — a harsh bill aiming to discourage certain types of migration to Israel. Israel's supreme court has deemed some of these measures unconstitutional.
While Shaked may struggle to get the coalition government's pro-immigration faction — which includes the left-leaning Labor and Meretz parties — to sign-off on her proposal, as head of the interior, she could tighten already-stringent rules on asylum applications. (Haaretz recently reported on Israel's diplomatic ploy to return African migrants to "blood-drenched dictatorships" in Africa.)
Infrastructure and the West Bank. Naftali Bennett is unapologetically pro-settlement, having long-advocated for Israel to annex swathes of the occupied West Bank because of these areas' sizable Jewish populations. The previous Likud government, meanwhile, also put infrastructure plans into motion, including new roads linking settlement blocs to major cities.
However, the transportation ministry is now likely to be led by Labor party chairwoman Merav Michaeli, a darling of the left. Michaeli will try to tweak the ministry's infrastructure priorities to focus on areas outside the West Bank, but her agenda could be hamstrung, at least in part, by the pro-settlement wing of the prospective coalition.
Palestinian issue. Not much is likely to change on this front. Lapid, head of the broad "change camp," is a centrist whose views are squarely within the current Jewish Israeli consensus. Lapid says he supports a two-state solution but opposes division of Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as the capital of a future state. Settlements are unlikely to expand under this government, as they have done substantially under Netanyahu, but neither are efforts to advance the moribund peace process.
Meanwhile, on the issue of fighting Hamas in the Gaza Strip, most coalition parties — and most Jewish Israelis — are aligned: a poll recently showed that 72 percent of Israelis supported their government's response to the Hamas rocket fire.
What's next for Bibi? When this coalition takes power, Bibi will likely remain leader of Israel's largest political party, and will head the opposition in the Knesset, even as he continues to face corruption charges that could eventually send him to jail. In the meantime, there's no reason to think Bibi won't do everything in his power to undermine the power-sharing government by trying to exploit differences within the ideologically-diverse coalition. If he succeeds, that would precipitate another election that could return him to the PM's seat.